by Milly Taiden
“That’s different,” she insisted.
“Of course it’s different.” He dragged her closer to the edge of the counter. Her butt teetered right on the edge, but his body wedged between her legs and held her there. “There are thousands of people in the audience every night, and there’s only one of me. They’re there to see Killer Valentine, and I only want to see you,” he dropped his head, and his soft lips caressed her shoulder, “all of you,” his hand covered hers where she held her dress up and pressed her top down, and the neckline bared her cleavage, “every bit of you,” he kissed the hollow of her throat and down her chest, pushing her back to lean against the mirror, “every last inch of you.”
His hand slid her dress up her thigh to her hip, and he glanced down at her leg. “What’s this?”
“Just a tattoo,” she whispered.
He pushed her skirt higher on her thigh, baring the black tracery on her pale skin. “It looks like jewelry.”
Loops of delicate chains were inked around her thigh like a garter. The dangling crystals on the outside of her thigh were just visible when she wore her shortest skirts.
“I love it,” he murmured. He ran his fingers over it, stroking her thigh around to the inside, and his finger grazed her panties, sending shivers through her. “Do you have any more?”
“Tramp stamp,” she admitted.
Jonas unzipped her dress farther down her back and looked over her shoulder and through the mirror to where the black lace bow was drawn over the dimples on the small of her back. “God, that’s beautiful.” His voice sounded choked in this throat, and he ran his lips over her shoulder, barely biting her. “Any more?”
“No,” she said. Tattoos were expensive. Every last cent of her money went into music and survival, in that order.
“Come on,” he said, his voice deep and husky in his throat. “Let’s get in that shower.”
He pulled her off the counter with her legs still around his waist. She slid down his leg, his strong thigh rubbing between her legs and sending pulses up her body, until her toes touched the ground.
He unhooked his pants and pushed them off, taking his underwear and socks off with them, but he raised his thigh so Rhiannon couldn’t quite get a view of the goods.
Not that she was peeking. Not that she was nervous.
When he dropped his shoulder to shove his pants off his foot, black and sapphire ink winked into view on his back.
Rhiannon straightened, trying to see the rest, but he stood and stepped close to her again. She couldn’t back up and take a gander at his gander, so she gazed into his pale green eyes, which were the color of good jade. “What’s the tatt on your back?”
He chuckled deep in his throat. “Xan convinced me to get it last year. He said that the one snake tattoo wasn’t rock and roll enough to be a band manager.”
He dipped one shoulder and half-turned, twisting, so that she could see his back.
Tattered bat wings draped down his muscular back in blue and ebony ink, like he was a demon who had been in a hell of a fight. The shredded leather and bat claws trailed all the way down past his tight waist to the hard globes of his ass.
“That’s huge. How long did it take?” Even though she knew that tattoos didn’t feel like anything other than skin, she stroked the inked leather and bones over his shoulder blade.
“A couple sessions. We started it when we were wasted one night while they were recording their last album. Once you start it, you have to finish.”
“It’s gorgeous.” Such a detailed, large tattoo must have cost a fortune. The leathery texture of the wings was exquisite. Her fingers reached his narrow waist, and he shivered under her touch.
“That shower is hot,” he said. “Come on.”
His hands peeled the dress from her body before she had a chance to protest any more. Rhiannon touched his sides, feeling the hard ridges of his abdominals and the heavy muscle around his torso.
Steam filled the air, drifting around them, soothing her abused throat, and turning the small hotel bathroom into a cloud bank.
Rhiannon tried to grab a towel but missed. She was too lumpy and barely hanging on professionally. She couldn’t interest a guy like Jonas—handsome and ripped and successful. Her voice was too operatic for Killer Valentine or any hard rock band. Gingers are never beautiful, and she didn’t even have cute freckles, just chalk white skin.
Jonas stretched the fabric of the dress over her hips and dropped it.
Her dress hit the tile floor of the hotel bathroom, the heavy material crumpling into a mass of sequins and elastic, and he popped the clasp on her bra, easing the straps over her arms. The straps sliding down her arms raised goosebumps on her skin, and she sucked a deep breath as her bra fell off her, landing on the floor.
She shut her eyes, afraid of what she might see in Jonas’s jade eyes, like disgust, or pity.
Warmth ghosted over her shoulder, and his curling hair brushed her ear. The crisp odor of tangerines and the earthy, masculine scent of his body rose around her, and she inhaled, drawing the taste into her. He had leaned down to press his mouth to her shoulder again, and his fingers hooked the sides of her panties. He tugged them over her hips and let them fall around her ankles.
She stepped out of her underwear and he moved her, slowly, like they were dancing, still kissing, still touching, and he was still stroking the roundness of her breasts and the curves of her hips, until the cold edge of the tub nudged the backs of her calves. She stepped over it, still reaching for him with her lips, and he climbed in the shower after her, sliding the rumbling door closed. The light from the fixture above the sinks glared through the frosted glass, not even dimming the tub like a shower curtain would.
He sucked at her lips, pressing her soft body against his hard flesh.
Warm water drenched her, matting her hair to her scalp, and ran down her face and trickled between their lips, tasting like chlorine and hair spray.
He broke off and dragged in a ragged breath, still clutching her shoulders. He grabbed the hotel mini-shampoo and squeezed some into his palm. “Turn around.”
Rhiannon faced the rain of warm water, a spray of heat and humidity that stung her eyes. She closed her eyelids, and Jonas’s hands stroked her, leaving trails of rosemary and mint in her hair. He massaged the shampoo in, working the bubbles through her thick tresses.
His fingers on her scalp rubbed away the hair spray, the concert sweat, and a tension headache that she had had for weeks.
He lathered the soap and used the slick suds and a washcloth to wash her body, smoothing cool foam on her back, her breasts, her arms and legs, and the back of her neck, where again, his hands slipped over her skin, kneading the tight muscles there until her body waved with each grasp.
If she hadn’t been so turned on, trembling with wanting to jump in his arms, she might have fallen asleep.
He reached around her, washing her breasts and stomach, and his warm body bumped her from behind, something long and hard between them. He used the soap to slip his hands over her skin, lifting her breasts and stroking the sides and undersides, gently running his fingers over the tips until her body ached for him.
She moaned and pressed against him, lifting her butt to try to take him in.
Condom, she thought, but the thought fell apart and rinsed away.
He slipped his hand down, and something thick nudged between her legs. Behind her, Jonas’s breath caught in his throat, a sexy sound.
She reached up, drawing his head down to her shoulder, and he turned them both, pressing her up against the glass door.
She tried to turn back, but Jonas caged her there with his arms.
She said, “Not the mirror.”
“You’re a beautiful woman,” he whispered. “I want to see you.”
Her figure, barely visible in the drifting steam, did look womanly, breasts and hips swelling around her wasp waist.
He slipped himself though her folds, driving waves up her body.
Every time he slipped through her, he rubbed inside her folds but didn’t thrust inside her, and she pressed back against him.
He said, “Cross your ankles.”
She did, and it forced him higher, tighter inside her soft folds and against her clit. He pumped, slowly rubbing.
Her fingers clutched the warm, wet glass, trying to hold on because her knees were trembling. Jonas held one arm around her waist, pressing her body against him, and pushed himself between her legs harder, pressing up and massaging her, until his hand drifted lower, parted her soft skin, and his fingertip drew a slow circle around her clit that ricocheted inside her and she writhed, gasping and crying out at the release. Her cheek pressed against the warm glass as her body pulsed.
Behind her, Jonas slapped her ass with his hips, and he throbbed between her legs, coming on the glass shower door. Hot water streamed down both of them and the glass, washing everything away.
Rhiannon couldn’t stop gasping, each breath a whimper as waves ran through her. He pressed her between his hard flesh and the door, panting. Water dripped off the ends of his wet curls and slid down her back and her shoulder.
The hourglass shape in the steam-fogged mirror bobbed with Rhiannon’s sighs. Clear lines traced down the white glass to her fingertips.
Jonas stroked her arm, his fingers gentle on her skin as he backed away from her. “You okay?”
“Yes. Oh, God, yes.” The sex, or whatever that had been, was more than good if the guy had to check-in afterward to make sure she wasn’t injured.
She twisted against his body and wrapped her arms around his trim waist, pressing her face to his wide chest. The shower poured hot water over them both, hissing with billowing steam. He bent his knees and hugged her back, laying his cheek on her hair.
They stayed there until the stinging water spray numbed her shoulder and her legs stopped shaking. With a deep breath, she edged away.
“Go ahead,” Jonas said, gesturing to the towel rack outside the tub. “I just need to wash my hair and stuff.”
Even though she kind of wanted to wash his stuff, Rhiannon’s fingers were wrinkling, so she stepped out of the shower and tucked a towel around herself. She combed out her hair, which sprang into red-gold ringlets. It looked better wet than dry, sadly.
In the mirror, over her shoulder, she caught Jonas watching her through the glass door while he rinsed shampoo out of his hair. His sly smile made her cheeks flush, but then he suddenly blinked hard and started rubbing his eye. She laughed at him, and he laughed at himself, too.
She dug into her toiletries kit and brushed her teeth.
She waited in the bedroom because walking out of his hotel room and just disappearing while he was in the shower felt wrong, so she clicked on the television and watched some news.
Jonas stuck his head out of the bathroom after a few minutes. “If you want, I have some extra tee shirts in my suitcase. Anything folded is clean. The stuff in the plastic bag is laundry.”
“You sure you want me in there?” She didn’t want to rummage around in his personal stuff and she wasn’t sure that she wanted to spend the night or that he really wanted her to.
He shrugged. “I have no secrets.”
Whatever the hell that meant. Everyone had secrets.
Rhiannon opened his suitcase, which was organized better than hers was. She grabbed a folded tee shirt out of the net pocket in the lid and struggled into it, pulling it down to her knees before the bathroom door opened. Luckily, she was short and Jonas was not. Prison Riot was written across the front of the shirt in spiked letters.
Prison Riot? Rhiannon couldn’t remember any of their albums.
Well, it was dawn, and her arms and legs felt like she had been fighting the ocean for hours. Her brain must be tired, too.
Jonas came out of the bathroom, scrubbing his head with a white towel and wearing another one slung around his hips. Tangerine-scented steam puffed into the bedroom from behind him. When he saw the shirt she was wearing, he kind of laughed, even though it didn’t sound like he had seen anything funny. “That’s not a good omen. Why don’t you pick a different shirt?”
She shrugged, and the soft material tickled her thighs. “Okay. Turn around.”
Jonas laughed for real this time, but he turned his back to her and flipped the towel over his head, drying his hair more vigorously.
On his powerful back, his lats rippled as he rubbed his hair, all those muscles sliding under his light gold skin.
If Rhiannon changed shirts really slowly, she could watch his heavy muscles dance for a while, but she whipped the shirt off and dragged a different one over her head. This one had Metallica written across her fluffy boobs. “Okay. I’m decent.”
Jonas turned back. “That’s better.”
She laid the other shirt on the bed and smoothed it out, preparing to fold it. Just because her own suitcase looked like an autumn leaf pile didn’t mean that she should do that to his.
He snagged it from the bed. “You don’t have to fold it. I never wear it.”
Rhiannon didn’t want to pry. Prying was bad. “Why not?”
He stuffed it back in the net pocket of his suitcase. “Prison Riot was the last band I managed. They fell apart due to ‘creative differences,’” he mimed the air quotes, “just when they were ready to break out. Half of them are dead. One guy is in jail. I don’t know what happened to their lead guitarist. I hope he gave up music and got the hell out of L.A. At least with Killer Valentine, I don’t have to worry about Xan not working hard enough, just working himself to death, but the rest of them are time bombs.”
“Jesus.”
He nodded. “Xan recruited them for their talent, not their temperament, which I’m beginning to think was a mistake.”
“What about me?” Oh, insecure artist girl had popped up. Crap.
His sharp glance looked like he was quantifying how much to tell her. “I meant what I said. If Xan goes off his rocker and doesn’t renew your contract, I’ll hire you as an assistant manager, and if you’re on the managerial leg of the organizational chart, I can probably at least double your salary.”
“Well, that’s good.” Even though she had ditched everything in her life to be a singer.
No, she would go back to L.A. with a little extra money in her pocket and start touring the clubs again, looking for bands that would take her.
Jonas added, “Unless Xan goes all temperamental and blackballs you. Then I’m stuck.”
The word blackball lodged in her chest. One band’s shunning would mean others wouldn’t work with her, either, especially if that band was someone like Killer Valentine. Word got around. “Would he do that?”
Jonas sighed. “I wish I could tell you that it’s never happened, but he walks close to the edge of what he can handle, of what anyone could handle, and sometimes he just loses his shit. Come on. Let’s not talk about this. We should get a little sleep before we have to pretend like this never happened.”
Rhiannon caught his eye and stared at him hard to get his full attention. “Just to be clear, we should pretend like this never happened?”
“In front of the others, this never happened, just to keep problems to a minimum. Any time we’re alone?” He smiled at her, and a little of the devil lit his green eyes. “This absolutely happened.”
He yanked the heavy curtains closed over the window where the sunrise was beginning to brighten the edge of the city and took her hand to lead her to the bed.
She said, “I can go back to my own room if you want to sleep.”
Jonas lifted her easily, and she flailed for a second when he hauled her into the air. He whispered in her ear, “Don’t go,” and then settled her on the bed, climbed in beside her, and dragged the covers over them both.
“I didn’t even get to wear my good underwear,” she mused.
His eyes closed as he drowsed. “Wear it tomorrow.”
She turned over and faced him, scrunching a pillow to hold her up. “Is there a tomorrow?”
“There’s always tomorrow, or at least,” he glanced at the clock on the dresser in the twilight dawn, “later today.”
“No, I mean, is there a tomorrow for this,” she said, and damn, she sounded like a wheedling little ninny. “Is this something just for tonight, just because we needed it? Because it’s okay if it is.”
His eyes opened halfway, the green glinting under his eyelashes, like he was trying to wake up but couldn’t. “Whatever you want, Rhiannon. I meant it when I said that you could leave any time. You can go, or you can sleep in my arms for a few hours.” He adjusted his arms around her, curling her body down like a kitten that he wrapped himself around. “I’ve wanted to touch you for weeks—months, really—but the band’s dynamic is so fragile that I didn’t want to upset it. Now that you’re here, I want you to come back tomorrow, or tonight,” he yawned, “or whenever our next chance to sleep will be.”
Earthquake
A couple hours later, Jonas was sitting up in the darkened room, his forearms on his knees, staring at the dark television screen nailed to the opposite wall. A line of morning sunlight leaked under the curtains and blazed a trail on the floor beside the bed.
The floor under the bed tilted. His fingers curled into fists. Most people wouldn’t notice it, but Jonas felt every sway of the tall building.
Rhiannon stirred in the hotel bed beside Jonas. Her body, still warm with sleep, dragged the covers around his waist as she sat up. She asked, “You awake?”
“I suppose.”
“You okay?”
“Yeah, fine,” he lied.
“Do you sleep sitting up?”
“Sometimes when I can’t sleep, I watch television in the middle of the night.” Or morning, or whatever time it was.
She cuddled up to his back, and Jonas closed his eyes at the shocking comfort of her soft flesh. “The television’s off,” she said.